Centralia (7 page)

They rode in silence for the next thirty minutes, across oceans of open farmland striped with rows of corn and blanketed with fields of golden wheat, and through the towns of Five Forks and Crossroads. Peter kept glancing in his mirrors but never saw the black Lincoln or any other vehicle following them. Though satisfied that he’d temporarily shaken his murderous shadow, he didn’t believe for one moment that he’d lost his pursuers but had merely stalled them. They seemed to have resources beyond his ability to truly hide. He only needed to lie low long enough to collect his thoughts, formulate a plan, and figure out what to do with Amy. He certainly didn’t want to endanger her any more than he already had but knew that she was part of it now
 
—she was involved
 
—and whoever was after him wouldn’t stop until they had both of them.

When they arrived in Bentleysville, Peter said, “We need gas, and I need to get some answers.”

Amy said, “I need answers too.”

“You’ll get them. As much as I know.” She deserved to know what he knew, which wasn’t much. During the drive following their cornfield escape, his mind had sprouted a whole new crop of questions. All without answers. He’d spare Amy the finer nuances of his tortuous soliloquizing and share only the facts he’d learned or deduced.

After filling the truck at a small local station on the fringe of town, he found a coffee shop on one of the secondary streets and parked behind it in the employee parking area.

“Why not go to the library?” Amy asked.

“Cameras,” Peter said. “Libraries have security cameras, even in small towns.”

“Yeah, these little towns are real hotbeds for book thieves. You wouldn’t imagine what the street value is for the latest Dan Brown novel.”

“We need to stay off the grid, out of view. No cameras, no credit cards, no phone calls.”

Amy sighed, ran her hand through her hair. “You think they can tap into some country library’s closed-circuit system?”

“I’m not sure what they’re capable of right now. They tracked me to your house. How did they do that? My car? My phone? It could be anything. It’s like they know my next move before I do. They’re resourceful, and until I figure out how they operate, we need to be as invisible as possible.”

“And who exactly are they?”

Peter pulled the key from the ignition and opened the truck’s door. “That’s what I’m trying to figure out.”

It took Lawrence Habit a full twenty minutes to make his way around the cornfield and find the road that Patrick and the woman had taken. It was obvious civil engineers had tractors, not assassins, in mind when designing the grid for rural roads. Oversize, tread-heavy tires could go where luxury sedans could not. Lawrence primarily made his living maneuvering through city streets with stop signs and traffic lights and the occasional pedestrian to deal with. This land of corn and wheat and shoulderless roads was as foreign to him as a grass-covered savanna was to a mountain goat. He glanced at his watch. He was now thirty minutes behind them. He’d have to be liberal on the gas pedal.

Shortly after Lawrence had lost Patrick and reported his miscalculation, his employer had phoned back and given him the route and direction Patrick and the woman were headed. The call came from a different number this time, and it was a different voice on the other end, masculine but with an effeminate quality to it
 
—so mechanical and lifeless Lawrence at first thought it was a recording. To make sure it wasn’t an automated caller, he asked the voice what its favorite rock group of the 1970s was. An odd question, but personal enough that a computer-generated identity using artificial intelligence would not be programmed to answer it. The voice hesitated, then mumbled that it didn’t listen to seventies rock. Eighties was its music of choice. Red Hot Chili Peppers.

Satisfied that he was indeed speaking to a real person, Lawrence told the voice to phone him again when Patrick reached his destination, wherever that might be. The voice agreed but said yet another
individual from yet another phone number would call Lawrence the next time.

Lawrence was not surprised.

Ten minutes later he received another call. A man this time, no mistaking it, with a hint of a New England accent. Bostonian. Patrick’s location was given with specific orders to take him alive. This made Lawrence’s job a lot trickier. Still, it was better than the alternative. He did not want to kill Patrick; after all, he owed the guy his life.

Lawrence thanked the caller for the information and was about to disconnect the call when the man said, “One more thing you should take note of.”

Lawrence pressed the phone harder against his ear. “I’m taking notes.”

“If you fail this time, you will be discontinued.”

That was it. Spoken coldly as if he’d read it from a script and didn’t realize what he’d said, the weight of his words, the finality of his simple sentence, until after the words had crossed his lips.

“Thanks for the warning,” Lawrence said.

The man disconnected.

Discontinued.
Lawrence ran his finger around the steering wheel. It certainly didn’t mean fired. The agency didn’t fire people. Either you were in or you were out. And if you were out, it meant you were dead. Discontinued.

He wouldn’t fail, though. He never had and never would. Persistence was a trait of his that had gotten him through too many tours in desert wastelands and landed him countless scores for the agency. He was their most successful tool. A pit bull when it came to completing a mission. That wasn’t about to change now.

Upon entering the coffee shop, another memory assaulted Peter.

He’s at a booth, sipping coffee. He’s wearing a uniform, dark blue, short sleeves. Beneath the shirt is a thick vest, tight against his chest and around to his back. Another man is with him, another officer, presumably his partner. On the wall behind the booth is a large clock with a round white face and bold black numbers, its hands showing 7:45. The other cop
 
—what was his name?
 
—smirks and says, “You hear what happened with Rodriguez?”

Peter shakes his head. “Which one?”

“The old man.”

The waitress behind the counter hands them each a steaming coffee. She smiles at Peter’s partner, but it isn’t the friendly type of smile that would normally pass between a waitress and her customers. No, this is a knowing smile, a more-than-friendly smile that makes Peter suspicious of their relationship.

When she glances at Peter, he merely nods at her, then says to his partner, “What? Did someone get to him?”

His partner drags his eyes from the waitress’s slender figure long enough to take a slow sip of coffee. “He’s gettin’ out.”

“What do you mean he’s getting out? He was put away for thirty.”

“Struck some kind of deal with the DA and they got him out early.”

“What kind of deal?”

His partner shrugs. “Confidential, they say.”

Peter was still standing in the doorway, one hand lingering on the door’s handle, when Amy touched his shoulder. “Hey, you okay?”

“Uh, yeah. Yes.” The memory had come out of nowhere like a fleet of kamikaze planes. This place, this café, was familiar to him, but he’d never been here; he was certain of it. And he’d never been
a cop
 
—of that he was certain too. His mind was misfiring, splicing together images and memories from his past
 
—maybe movies he’d watched or stories he’d read
 
—and creating some alternate reality.

“You sure?” Amy said. “You look like you just saw a ghost.”

“And what does that look like?”

“The look or the ghost?”

Peter shook his head. “I’m fine. Just thinking.”

“Planning, I hope.”

Inside the coffee shop were five patrons. An elderly couple at a corner table, both with coffees. The man read a brochure about a cruise to Iceland; his coffee was black and hot. His wife held her mug with both hands and watched the lazy morning traffic out the window. A young woman, no more than thirty, sipped an iced coffee while paging through a magazine. She wore a beret and scarf, no jacket but a heavy wool sweater. Then there were two men at the counter, both middle-aged, rugged and unshaven, jeans-and-sweatshirt types, both taking their time with their black coffees. One read a newspaper while the other made small talk with the woman behind the counter. She seemed uncomfortable with his attention but remained polite.

After ordering a coffee and a latte, Peter and Amy seated themselves at a table for two toward the back of the shop. Peter faced the front door but was aware of the customer restroom behind him and the entrance to the kitchen to his right. Beyond the kitchen would be the rear exit. He turned his chair a little to the right so he could clearly see both the front door and the kitchen come-and-go area.

Sipping his coffee, he said to Amy. “Sorry about your landscaping back there.”

“Peter, we need to go back.”

Peter shook his head. “Can’t. They’ll be waiting for that.”

“Who will be waiting?”

“I don’t know.”

“I’m not a fugitive. I can’t just abandon my home, my career, and go on the run.”

Peter bit his cheek and nodded slowly. “Maybe you should go now.”

“Go where?”

“To the cops. There must be a police station in this town.”

“You said the cops weren’t safe.”

“Not for me. But there’s no reason to put both of us in the line of fire. Besides, they’ll believe you.”

Amy turned in her seat but hesitated.

“What’s the matter?” Peter said. “Go. I can handle it on my own from here.”

Amy faced Peter again. “Whoever is after you, if they’ve gone this far, surely they wouldn’t just forget about me.”

“Go, Amy.”

“I can’t. If you have a price on your head, then so do I by now. Besides, whatever happened in the past, you’re still . . . very important to me.”

Peter sighed. “Amy, I never meant
 
—”

“I’m not trying to make this awkward. But I’m staying. I’d rather know where the danger is coming from for a while than live the rest of my life looking over my shoulder, wondering whether they’re coming for me.”

Peter glanced around the shop. For the moment, nothing seemed out of place. “All right. Thank you, I guess. And I’m sorry. We need to stay off the grid. We use only cash from here on out.”

“And how long do we have to do that? How long before we can go home again?”

Peter shrugged. How long before either of them could go home again? “When all this is over.”

Amy sipped her latte again and stared at the table. “Who are they, Peter? Seriously.”

“I honestly don’t know. The government, I think.”

“Why are they after you?”

“I don’t know.”

“Okay.” She set her latte down and folded her hands on the table. “Let’s start here. What do you know?”

Peter paused, swirled the coffee in the cup. The black liquid reflected the lights of the café in alternating black-and-white concentric circles. In the dark swirls Peter found Amy’s face, distorted, etched with pain
 
—no, agony and fear. A chill passed through him as easily as frigid air penetrates loose-knit fabric. Quickly he took another sip of the coffee to erase the image. Her question was valid, though. What did he know? The problem was that he wasn’t sure what he knew
 
—really knew
 
—and what he’d only imagined or dreamed or concocted in a distant corner of his mind. Wherever the line was between the actual events of his past and his memory of it, Peter had no idea. His mind was feeding him lies, and he didn’t know what to hold on to: the reality he experienced or the reality other people were telling him about. Regardless, he had a lot to explain to Amy and would do his best to share only what he knew or perceived to be factual. “I know I awoke this morning and Karen and Lilly were gone.”